by Jade Kerrion
John walked to the window and looked out, possibly toward the edge of town where Virtanen had once lived. “He wasn’t old, but he had the look of a man who had suffered a great deal. He avoided adults—he was hesitant around them—but he loved children.” A smile tugged at John’s lips. “The uncomplicated innocence of a child’s love has saved more than one alpha empath, hasn’t it?”
Laura…
John continued, “Virtanen made a living selling his chocolate to restaurants and hotels in the area, despite giving most of it away to the children who came to his door. He did not seem to need or want much. He did not even talk when he gave us chocolate. Just handed out his concoctions on large trays, and stood back, content to watch us play and eat on the street in front of his home.
“He gave everything, expected nothing.” John spun around. His eyes flashed, but the air did not even quiver. John’s psychic shields were stronger than any Danyael had ever seen. “Do you have any idea how dangerous…how fatal…that is?
“Giving costs something, and when you get nothing in return, then giving will eventually cost everything, leaving you empty. That’s what happened that night. Empty became too much for Virtanen to bear. He died, and my parents, my friends, my neighbors—an entire town died with him.” John took a step toward Danyael. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
Danyael did nothing, said nothing.
“I see a man who has suffered more than Virtanen in far fewer years. A man who—like Virtanen—gives everything, expects nothing, and is running on fumes, desperately close to empty. When you die, and you will, you could take out hundreds, thousands of people. Wipe out all human life for miles.”
Danyael shook his head. “Virtanen was an attack-class empath. I’m not. My power can be contained until it dissipates.”
“Only if you know the moment of your death, and of course, there is nothing random about death, is there?” John’s smile turned mocking.
Danyael shook his head. “You’re not trying to save lives, or you would have given Maya instructions on how to take me out without killing others in the process. You want innocent people to die. Why?”
“Alpha empaths should never have been allowed to live freely among people! Virtanen’s death, the death of hundreds of people with him, taught the world nothing! They let Cortez live free. They let Faraji live free. They let you live free. Those soft-hearted, liberal government bastards will be the death of us all. Let them sign off on all the death certificates.”
“And you?” Danyael asked. “Are you a threat?”
“I wouldn’t have been.” John’s fingers brushed restlessly against the dust. “I wasn’t like you. I wasn’t like any of the other alpha empaths. I was the one who could have made a difference, who could have changed how the world perceived alpha empaths. But Virtanen took my choice away.”
“We always have a choice.”
“That’s what you think.” John laughed. “That’s certainly what you have to believe to keep yourself even marginally sane. How do you do it? Go through the motions of a meaningless life, struggle every day through your pain and the pain of others and for what?”
“For my daughter.” And for Zara.
“For the three hours you spend with her on Sunday mornings? That’s all her mother will allow you. Three hours, closely supervised. You’re never left alone with her. Is that trust? Is that love?” John’s upper lip drew back in a snarl. “Is that enough?”
Danyael drew a deep, shaky breath. “If you’re trying to push me over the edge, it won’t work.”
“You’re right on the edge, Danyael. You’ve been there for months…years. You refuse to acknowledge how close you are to falling, but you know the awful, staggering enormity of what you did on July 4th in a way no alpha empath, not even Virtanen did. He killed by accident. You killed with intent. You claim to be a doctor, a healer, but you are a murderer. You keep company with an assassin who kills without hesitation. She battles her own demons, but she kills from a distance. It’s never personal for her. Not you. You get close enough to touch, close enough to heal, but instead, you kill. You kill when you are close enough to see hate and terror overtake them. Your courage, your perseverance…they are a facade you wear. You are not afraid of death because you are death.”
Danyael ground his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut against the swell of anger and the clamor of voices in his head, screaming, fighting. He could not lose control. Kivisuo was deserted, but for John, Maya, Zara, and him. John and Maya might survive Danyael’s empathic attack, but not Zara.
He could not risk her.
He could not harm her.
And he would not play into John’s hands.
Willpower kept Danyael’s voice steady. “I know what I am, and I know how to contain the threat I pose to others. Do you know the threat you are?”
John smiled broadly. “You cannot stop me. I may not have endured a fraction of your physical pain, but I have suffered a lifetime of loneliness and guilt. I am more powerful than you are, and I cannot be contained. My pain—unlike yours—makes me invulnerable. I cannot be harmed, cannot be killed—because there is no way to shut me down.”
Danyael’s breath caught. John’s an attack-class alpha empath.
And he knows it…
Danyael braced against the blast of hate from without and the curl of dread within. “The world doesn’t need more pain, more loss. It doesn’t need what two alpha empaths can do to it. John, please. It doesn’t have to end like this.”
“It will end the only way it can, Danyael, as a lesson for the world. It will end in screaming, hate-filled death. First yours, then mine.”
Zara’s presence flickered against the periphery of Danyael’s awareness. She was close, too close. He couldn’t let her interfere. “John—”
“There has to be a price paid! For what you did on Theodore Roosevelt Island. For what Virtanen did here. For the pain the world put us through to turn us into monsters! They will pay—”
“Why would you inflict even more pain on a world that has already suffered from what alpha empaths have done?”
“They did this to us. To Virtanen. To you. To me. They made us monsters. If Maya had succeeded, you would have died in Anacostia.”
Horror clenched Danyael’s heart. “I retreated to Anacostia when I had no other place to go.” An emotion, too fleeting to grasp, flickered against his awareness. Not Zara. Maya? Was she also nearby? “The people—”
“Welcomed you? Just as we welcomed Virtanen. Just as we ignored the risk of an alpha empath living among us. We paid the price of other men’s cruelty, but there will be a full accounting, even if it takes twenty-five years. My work isn’t done until they pay.” John bared teeth in a grin devoid of humanity. “Don’t take it personally, Danyael. This isn’t about ridding the world of alpha empaths. It’s about making the world pay for hurting us, warping us until all we can do is to strike back at them.” He held out his hand, palm facing Danyael, his fingers tensed like claws. “Tell me, Danyael. How much can you take before you break?”
A shot rang out. John dropped to his knees. His eyes were wide, aghast. He pressed his hand against his bleeding chest.
Zara stepped out of the shadows. “Slow learners, all of them.”
“Zara!” Danyael spit her name out like a curse.
“Are you kidding me? You’re not going to save him.”
“He’s attack-class, and he’s riding high on an emotional nuclear bomb. If he dies, the impact could reach as far as Leivonmäki. Thousands of people will die.” Danyael ground his teeth. “It’s all right, John. I’ve got you. I’m not going to let you die.”
John stared at Danyael, and coughed. Blood leaked out from his mouth. Danyael’s empathic healing powers, propelled by touch, passed through John’s psychic shields. The answers bubbled back. Zara’s bullet had penetrated John’s lung. Healing John was going to be hell—and Danyael had been struggling against lingering weaknesses—but he did not hesitate. His
empathic healing powers churned through John’s body. Danyael’s chest burned from the sudden effort of breathing. He swallowed the nauseating sensation of suffocating in his own blood. He did not let go until the chill of encroaching death gave way to the warmth of continued life.
He staggered back and squeezed his hands into fists to contain the icy sensation tingling through his fingertips. His vision blurred into a haze of gray and yellow, the outlines of objects quivering.
Something flicked on the edge of his awareness. “Others…coming.”
John laughed weakly. His hand still pressed against his bloodstained shirt even though the wound had closed. “My Sicarii are here. You can’t escape them. I wanted a more dramatic exit for you, Danyael, not this remote place, but you’re going to have to content yourself with taking Zara out with you. But don’t worry. I won’t be much longer, and soon you’ll have lots of broken souls keeping you company.”
Zara yanked Danyael to his feet. She shoved his crutch under his arm. “Move it! Now.”
“You can’t escape.” John’s laughter followed them.
“Back to the car. I’ll get us out of here,” Zara ordered.
“Maya…”
“She’s not with us. She never was. She led us into a trap.”
Bullets tore up the cracked concrete sidewalk. Zara pulled Danyael into a side street. “You’re not fast enough. I’ll get the car. Stay here. Keep under cover.” Her grip tightened on his arm painfully enough to leave bruises. “You stay alive, you hear me? Whatever it takes.”
“Take the car. Get out of here. Don’t come back for me.”
Zara snarled. “I will always come back for you.” She darted out into the open.
Gunfire rattled.
It continued to rattle, the sound oddly reassuring. As long as someone was firing, it meant that Zara was still alive.
Danyael gripped his leg, damning his weakness. Not for the first time, he was a liability, and not just to himself. He was a danger to everyone around him, and most especially Zara, who insisted on sticking around.
“He’s down in there!” an unfamiliar voice shouted. “If you can, take him alive.”
Danyael gritted his teeth. Close contact gave him a fighting chance.
He sagged against the wall. He did not have to fake fatigue and exhaustion when a man, armed with a machine gun, appeared at the head of the alley. Their eyes met. The man brought his machine gun up and closed the distance carefully. “Step away from the wall.”
Danyael stepped forward instead of back.
The man’s eyes flared wide, first with surprise then pain as Danyael sent a surge of anguish through physical contact. The man reeled, dropping unconscious to the street. His assault rifle clattered out of his hand.
Danyael couldn’t stay in one spot; he had to keep moving. He would lose the element of surprise if others saw the bodies piling up around him. He crept deeper into the alley and carefully emerged on the other side. Zara’s presence pulsed like a homing signal. If he could make his way toward her—
A flicker of a stranger’s emotions gave him a fraction second’s warning. A man, also armed, lunged out of a doorway. Danyael ducked beneath the muzzle of the assault rifle and touched the man’s hand. Pain transferred through physical contact. That Sicarii too, dropped to the ground, his breath expelling out of him.
How many more?
Danyael did not know. And there was no way to know where Maya was unless she gave herself away—and that happened only under extreme emotional duress.
Farther away, Zara’s emotions flared. They almost never did when she was in control of the situation. She was hurt. He knew it with gut-deep certainty. Panic quickened his pace through the shadows cast by the overhangs of dilapidated buildings. The sound of his crutch, tapping on the street, gave away his location.
His empathic senses shrieked warnings as others closed in on him. Someone crouched, just around the corner, emotions rippling with confidence. What challenge did a cripple pose?
A cripple who had spent too much time watching a master assassin at work.
Zara’s most trusted means of defense was to attack, and Danyael was not as unobservant or as slow a learner as she thought he was.
Gritting his teeth against the cramps in his leg and back, Danyael lunged around the corner, his hand outstretched. His empathic powers blasted out a surge of pain. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head as he crumpled to the ground.
No one, it seemed, was mentally prepared for an alpha empath stepping toward the gun instead of away. The Sicarii all carried assault rifles; their supporting hand was farther away from them, and closer to Danyael.
All he needed was touch.
And if he knocked them out, they would not be conscious or aware enough to react to any major empathic backlash if he were killed. They would not kill themselves.
No more suicides—not by my hand.
I choose not to be a curse.
That voice, though, was thin, squashed by doubt, flattened by facts. Life had crushed all his dreams.
What was one more?
Danyael glanced up at the sound of a car roaring toward him. The silver BMW had blood streaked across its front bumper. The car stopped beside him. Zara leaned across the front seat and flung open the passenger side door. “Get in.”
He stumbled in. A spray of bullets ripped up the ground beside him. His crutch fell to the street. He did not try to reach for it. Zara accelerated so hard, he was slammed back into the seat.
“Are you all right?” she demanded.
“Yes, but you’re not.” He did not need to study her. Her emotions swarmed with pain.
“Left side,” she grated out the words, as if she were personally offended.
He placed his hand against the rapidly spreading patch of crimson on her shirt. “There’s shrapnel still in there.”
“There’s metal in all parts of me. A bit more won’t kill me.”
He wanted…needed…to do more for her—as much for her, as for him. Breathing deeply, Danyael channeled healing and absorbed her pain. Physically, his body recoiled from the effort, but the emotional tautness within him unwound, embracing the rightness of it. Healing others reminded him of what he had chosen to be, instead of what circumstances had limited his choices to.
Zara swore under her breath. “We’ve got two on our tail. Hold tight.”
He slid the seat belt buckle into its clasp, and noticed that she wasn’t buckled up. The building at the corner of the intersection seemed to appear out of the fog. He gripped the side of the car seat as Zara swung the steering wheel sharply. The brakes screamed. Rubber screeched against the road as the car skidded into a tight turn. They were barely clear of the wall when Zara slammed down on the accelerator.
The first car pursuing them made the turn, barely. Metal ripped as its side tore against the building. The dust and dirt kicked up by its ungraceful turn almost obscured the crash of the second car careening straight into the wall.
Mortar crumbled. Stones crashed down, smashing onto the hood of the car, crippling it.
Zara’s grin was tight, vicious. “We’ll lose them in traffic.”
“No, you can’t lead them to Leivonmäki.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“If I’m killed—”
“I’m not making decisions on the off-chance that you’re killed. That kind of decision-making is more likely to get us killed.”
“That’s exactly what John wants. He wants a disaster. He wants me to be the means of it.”
“I’m not going to let it happen. Nothing will happen to you.”
“Zara—”
“I don’t give a damn about faceless, nameless people. I won’t sacrifice you to save anything or anyone.”
“Not even yourself?”
Zara’s mouth tightened into a straight line. Her gaze was intent, locked on the road. She gritted her teeth. If she said anything at all, it was inaudible.
The sudden
glare of incoming headlights snapped his attention to a perpendicular road. “Look out!”
Zara swerved her car away from the impending collision. A glance out of the rearview mirror confirmed several more beams of light headed in their direction. “If we can make it to the bridge before they do, I can bring it down. It’s not far.”
To Danyael, it seemed too far, the rickety structure scarcely visible through the heavy fog that rose from the ground. Zara sped toward the bridge, her BMW scarcely hindered by the badly damaged roads and deep potholes. Bullets ripped up the road as the network of lights behind their car merged into a straight line. “Almost there,” Zara promised grimly.
The car jolted, wobbling as the wooden slats of the bridge shook beneath them. The jostling became more pronounced as other cars rolled on to the bridge. “Here, take the wheel,” Zara ordered. Danyael reached over and grabbed the steering wheel as Zara reached for her gun. She leaned out of the window, then jerked back in. “Watch out!”
A car, its headlights off, loomed ahead of them on the bridge. The roar of its engine raced toward them. Zara grabbed the wheel back from Danyael. Her foot pressed even harder on the accelerator. “Hold on.”
At the last possible instant, the car hurtling toward them swerved, but not enough. The narrow bridge did not provide enough room for error. The other car slanted off its right wheels, its undercarriage running along the left side of Zara’s BMW. The car’s left tires and the slide of steel against the metal rivets of the bridge sent up a spray of sparks. Metal screamed. Zara’s car, pushed sideways by the other car’s momentum, smashed through the frail railing and plunged toward the water.
Danyael grabbed Zara, but momentum was stronger. Her forehead smashed against the car windshield. The force of her impact ripped his shoulder muscles and sent pain screaming down his back, but he kept her from being flung through the glass. She went limp as the car hit the water.